Chapbook

The White Swallow

Cover art by Diana Arterian.

About The white swallow

A stillborn baby is revived by a small white bird, which takes the place of her heart. Years later, in the company of the butcher's daughter, the bird girl finds the swallow can share its gift with her: she can heal sickness and injury.

The White Swallow is a folktale and a love story. It was selected by Aimee Bender as the winner of the 2014 Gold Line Press Chapbook Competition.

praise for the white swallow

"The White Swallow has so many things going for it—starkly memorable imagery, strangeness that feels natural to the story, the feeling that the story itself grew up from the earth like a tree, and a tragic ending that defies moralization but seems instead to reflect the same unpredictable and mysterious quality of the world that also lets birds go into girls and healing to occur and, for inside all that, love to blossom." —Aimee Bender, Final Contest Judge

"Anna Kovatcheva is a brilliant young talent. Her prose is effervescent, toughly lyric, sensuous and sharp-eyed. The White Swallow is so fluently written, one can virtually feel the swallow's wings beating. And the story of the intense friendship of young girls, realized virtually in front of their elders' (unseeing) eyes, is a small miracle, tragically curtailed. But the narrator survives—in language that is a flight of its own." —Joyce Carol Oates

purchase Availability

The White Swallow is available from Gold Line Press, Small Press Distribution, or signed and directly from the author. To purchase an autographed copy, please send $12 (includes shipping) to @Anna-Kovatcheva via Venmo and include a US mailing address and the recipient's name in the comments.